#michael mccurdy

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

Michael McCurdy

Presented here are all the wood-engraved illustrations by American illustrator, author, publisher, and master wood engraver Michael McCurdy (1942-2016) for a 1985 edition of French writer Jean Giono's (1895–1970) The Man Who Planted Trees, published in Chelsea, Vermont by Chelsea Green Publishing in 1985. This was among the first imprints to be published by Chelsea Green, which continues to publish today.

The Man Who Planted Trees, perhaps the most well known of Giono's works outside France, was first published in Vogue in 1953 under the title "The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness." The story, about a shepherd's long, singlehanded effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps near Provence, is an inspiration for ecological regeneration that has garnered international attention. In 1988, it was adapted as the Academy Award-winning animated short film of the same title by Frédéric Back, and was the basis for the 2025 comic book L'Homme qui plantait des arbres written by Florence Lebonvallet and drawn by Daniel Casanave.

Michael McCurdy attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and went on to earn both his BFA and MFA from Tufts University. He became a celebrated engraver and fine press printer, founding Penmaen Press in Boston in 1968, which he continued to operate in Lincoln and finally in Great Barrington, Massachusetts before closing the press in 1985.

View more posts with wood engravings by Michael McCurdy.

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Beautifully illustrated by Michael McCurdy, this new edition of A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews is a triumph from The University of Georgia Press.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

Michael McCurdy

Michael McCurdy (1942-2016) was an illustrator, author, publisher, master wood engraver, and founder of Penmaen Press in 1968. Deeply inspired in his youth by the engravings of Lynn Ward, McCurdy made his first wood engraving in 1963 while attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He went on to earn both his BFA and MFA at Tufts University and became a celebrated engraver and fine press printer.

Shown here are two of McCurdy's wood engravings printed by the legendary Harry Duncan (1916-1997) in the 1982 edition of American poet and Zen practitioner Susan Efird's narrative poem The Eye of Heaven printed at Abattoir Editions, the fine press of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, in an edition of 150 copies. Our copy is yet another donation from our late friend Jerry Buff (1931-2025).

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World Kindness Day!

Today is World Kindness Day, so to celebrate, we present An Act or Two of Kindness by William Saroyan with wood engravings by Helen Siegl. Published by Penmaen Press in 1977 in Lincoln, MA, this first edition was designed and set by Michael McCurdy. This book features two tales that highlight acts of kindness amidst a world consumed by greed. The stories are titled The Ashtree Talker and The Crying Drunk. 

William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an Armenian American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He extensively wrote about the experiences of Armenian immigrants living in America. In 1940, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and, in 1943, an Academy Award for Best Story. 

Helen Siegl (1924-2009) was a printmaker born in Austria who spent most of her life in the United States. However, her experiences in her home city of Vienna during the tumultuous period of Nazi annexation, World War II, and the subsequent Soviet occupation shaped her artistic beliefs. 

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-Melissa, Special Collections Graduate Intern

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

This week we present a few wood engravings by American printer, publisher, and wood engraver Michael McCurdy (1942-2016) illustrating American poet X. J. Kennedy's ten-stanza poem Celebrations after the Death of John Brennan, printed in 1974 in an edition of 325 copies signed by the artist and poet at McCurdy's own Penmaen Press in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

McCurdy founded Penmaen Press in Boston in 1968 and continued to print at the press in Lincoln and finally in Great Barrington, Massachusetts before closing the press in 1985. When he died at the age of 74, his longtime literary agent, Susan Cohen of Writers House, remembered him this way: "His art has a true sense of grandeur. . . . Michael had a quiet charisma: very handsome and soft-spoken. A true Old School gentleman. An artist and craftsman who did seem to answer to a higher calling.”

View more posts with wood engravings by Michael McCurdy.

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It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present Poem Upon the Lisbon Disaster, by Voltaire (François Marie Arouet), illustrated with original wood engravings by American printmaker, illustrator, and wood engraver Lynd Ward, and translated by the American poet Anthony Hecht from the Pléiade edition of 1961. It was designed by Michael McCurdy at the Penmæn Press and set by Michael Bixler in Monotype Blado for the French text and Poliphilus for the English. McCurdy hand-printed the book on Ragston paper with assistance from Evelyn Clarke, and the book was bound by Robert Burlen and Son in Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1977 in three separate versions, totaling 500 assorted copies.  

In his introduction to the edition, Arthur Wilson notes that the massive earthquake that hit Lisbon in 1755 had a profound impact on then-famous dramatist, poet, and historian Voltaire, reinvigorating his disbelief in “all is for the best,” with the cynical quote “Optimism and all-is-well got it in the neck.”  The Lisbon earthquake is believed to be the most extreme earthquake in human history, with estimations concluding that 60,000 people perished from the first shocks or the ensuing tremors and seismologists believe that this event would have registered an 8.9 on the Richter Scale. It is no wonder that Voltaire found himself questioning his primary beliefs and values after a disaster of this scale, and he even referred to this poem as a sermon. 

Ward’s wood engravings follow this religious theme by tying a sense of impending doom into the increasingly dark perspective of the poetry. Beginning with a man gazing into a sunny sky and ending with hooded creatures approaching the man, the illustrations further convey the idea of despair and loss that Voltaire unmistakably conveys throughout the meandering, sorrowful poem. This poem is widely regarded as an introduction to Voltaire’s acclaimed 1759 novel Candide where he confronts the problem of evil, and also includes an episode on the Lisbon earthquake. 

View more posts featuring Lynd Ward illustrations. 

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-Emily, Special Collections Writing Intern

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It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present The Brick Moon: From the Papers of Captain Frederic Ingham by Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), with illustrations by Michael McCurdy and an introduction by Alden P. Johnson. Printed in an edition of 1,950 copies at The Spiral Press of New York for members of the Imprint Society of Barre, Massachusetts in 1971. The book was designed and printed by Joseph Blumenthal, using his own typeface, Monotype Emerson, and Perpetua Titling. It is signed by the artist, Michael McCurdy, and his original wood engravings were printed directly from the block. The paper is white laid Curtis Rag made for this edition by the Curtis Paper Company, Newark, Delaware. The book was bound by A. Horowitz & Son in Clifton, New Jersey.

The prospectus notes:

“Edward Everett Hale’s The Brick Moon is one of his least known works. When noticed at all it is casually listed as science fiction. Actually it is much more: a delicious and witty satire on the author’s Boston contemporaries, still somewhat under the spell of Louis Agassiz and Bronson Alcott. The tale involves the conception, financing, building, and launching of a brick moon to serve mariners as a permanent beacon.

Hale was a prolific writer who authored and edited over sixty books, as well as being a constant contributor to newspapers and magazines. It is not surprising that he wrote a science fiction piece laid against the background of his beloved New England and its people. The introduction is by Alden Johnson, president of Imprint Society.”

This book is another generous donation from our friend, Jerry Buff.

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–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern

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It's Fine Press Friday!

Today we highlight the late, great illustrator, author, publisher, and master wood engraver Michael McCurdy (1942-2016) who founded Penmaen Press at Boston in 1968, and continued to print at the press in Lincoln and finally in Great Barrington, Massachusetts before closing the press in 1985. McCurdy is well-known for his illustrations in many trade publications for both adults and children, but he was also a highly-accomplished book designer and fine-press printer. Today we present the title page and wood engravings from his fifth Penmaen Press imprint Dove at the Windows, Last Letters of Four Quaker Martyrs, printed in Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1973 in an edition 200 copies. McCurdy may have been drawn to the topic of Quaker nonconformists, as he himself was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. The book was designed and handset by McCurdy in Palatino type and printed on Nideggen paper. The text was edited by his wife Deborah Lamb McCurdy, to whom he was married for nearly 50 years. The edition is signed and numbered by Michael McCurdy.

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